Look, Buck said what he said, despite his protests to the contrary (Updated)

Update:I’ve chatted with Buck campaign spokesman Owen Loftus and he’s got an argument that provides an interesting explanation to this story. The information is included at the bottom of the post.

Ken Buck[1]’s campaign has just sent out a press release that makes a perfectly fine argument – but he muddies it by denying he said what he said regarding Sarah Palin[2].

Buck is right to criticize the way the Jane Norton[3] campaign has characterized his radio comments yesterday. By suggesting that the state GOP Assembly is a backroom full of good ole boys, Norton’s camp seems way off base to me.

But then Buck asserts: “Let me be clear. I did not say that Gov. Palin was ‘rude.’ In fact, I have tremendous respect for her, and have been looking forward to hearing her speak at Saturday’s event.”

Buck was asked if he would “prefer that Palin not come in and steal media – not just for you, but for the rest of Republicans and the grassroots for Colorado?”

His answer: “You know, it’s rude. It is frankly rude. People have worked for months to get out the caucus vote and to work towards this assembly and it’s unfortunate that if in fact that’s true, that someone would try to steal that show – Sarah Palin can come any day of the week after that and they can have their day in the sun. But for all those folks that have worked so hard to be heard and participate in the caucus process I think that it’s only fair that it’s their day.”

As the facts of the matter show, this assertion is not based in fact.
Interviews with event planners show the Palin event in Denver was set up months before Norton decided to skip the GOP Assembly – and long before he campaign started referring to it as a “backroom.”

Fair enough. I can see how Buck wouldn’t want Palin upstaging him during the event.

But as you can see from the above transcription, Buck argued that Palin ought to skip her Denver visit on May 22 altogether.

To that, Loftus says Buck has been looking forward “for weeks” to attend the Palin event Saturday night at Magness.

I think the bottom line here is that no matter what Buck meant when he said what he said, the truth is that media coverage of Sarah Palin could easily overshadow the GOP Assembly’s expected nomination of the far more obscure Weld County District Attorney. And that’s clearly galling Buck supporters.

Further, on the perception side of this thing, it was arguably poor politics for Buck to answer the question with a criticism of Palin.

There’s just nothing to be gained by using the word “rude” in this case.